A lighting arrangement may include one or more lighting arrays arranged in a predetermined manner to create a specific shape or design or a specific display show such as an animation or a plurality of shapes/designs. The lighting arrays may include one or more light strings where each light string includes one or more light nodes. For example, the light nodes may be light emitting diodes (LEDs). Thus, when a current is passed through the light strings, each light of the light string is powered to be illuminated. A lighting arrangement may include any number of light nodes and it is not uncommon for the lighting arrangements to includes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of lights.
US 20150319824 A1 relates to an apparatus and associated methods relate to an electrical interface design architecture to independently excite each of a network of light strings and/or light string controllers with any of a number of independent excitation signals. In an illustrative example, each of the light strings may receive a selected one of the excitation signals conducted via a wiring assembly to an interface formed as a plug or a corresponding socket.
WO 2013/095133 A1 relates to a method of retrieving status information of a lighting system. The lighting system comprises a plurality of LED-based lighting units arranged as nodes in a linear daisy-chained network, the network having network segments connecting two subsequent nodes downstream of a controller via an upstream transceiver and a downstream transceiver of the network segment, the method comprising: —propagating a command signal from the controller to a node of the lighting system by operating the upstream transceivers of the network segments that are upstream of the node in a transmitting mode and operating each of the downstream transceivers of the network segments that are upstream of the node in a receiving mode; —propagating a reply signal comprising the status information of the LED unit of the node from the node to the controller by operating the upstream transceivers of the network segments that are upstream of the node in a receiving mode and operating each of the downstream transceivers of the network segments upstream of the node in a transmitting mode whereby the method further comprises: —reversing an operating mode of an upstream transceiver of a network segment from operating in a transmitting mode to operating in a receiving mode only when the downstream transceiver of the network segment is operating in transmitting mode.
US 2014/055030 A1 relates to a transit vehicle lighting system has a plurality of LED-based lighting fixtures for providing interior illumination. A control network comprises a plurality of slave nodes for controlling the LED-based lighting fixtures, and a master node for controlling the slave nodes. The master node may be connected to the slave nodes by a combined power/communication bus in a daisy chain fashion. The slave node may include a power regulator and a controller for providing a target current command to the power regulator, and may adjust the target current based upon temperature measurements or a recorded age of the LEDs. An optical sensor may provide automatic dimming. A reduced number of LEDs may be used in an emergency mode. The lighting fixture may include a ceiling panel fixture and a riser panel attachable by way of a hinge mechanism.
WO 2016/083954 A2 relates to a lighting system, comprising a plurality of addressable nodes coupled together to form a network, at least one addressable node of the plurality of addressable nodes coupled to at least one LED light source, and at least one controller coupled to the network and programmed to transmit and receive data to and from the plurality of addressable nodes via a bidirectional data communication channel that forms a bus connection to the plurality of addressable nodes. The controller may be programmed to transmit address information via an addressing line to facilitate addressing of the nodes during commissioning of the nodes. The addressing line forms a serial connection between the plurality of addressable nodes.
However, to properly create the correct shape/design at a particular time, the address of each light node in the entire lighting arrangement (e.g., relative to one another) is required to be known such that a controller device may properly transmit the appropriate signals to illuminate the correct light nodes at the proper intensity and duration. When the address of each light node is not known, the resulting shape/design cannot be created. When the address of at least one light node is incorrect, the resulting shape/design is also not achieved. Thus, there is no margin for error in determining the address of each light node to create a light display.
With the lighting arrangement utilizing any configuration of connections for the lighting arrays (the configuration being more complicated with the more lighting arrays) as well as the lighting arrays utilizing any configuration of connections for the light strings (the configuration being more complicated with more light strings), determining the addresses of each light node in the lighting arrangement is challenging. For example, given the possible number of light nodes, a manual approach of determining the address of each light node is very time consuming and inefficient, particularly with more complex lighting arrangements and display shows. As noted above, even a single node having the incorrect address may cause a complete failure of the lighting arrangement.
More particularly, when the connections between light strings in a lighting array includes a splitter, the determining of the address of each light node can only be performed through the manual approach as there is no current implementation that supports the concept of a splitter (e.g., a first end of a light string connected to a controller, a second end of the light string connected to a splitter, two or more light strings connected to the splitter). In fact, each light string may utilize a splitter where each resulting sub-string may be further broken down into additional sub-strings. The splitting and sub-splitting of strings (to form a tree type structure) is desired to allow the lighting arrangement to comply closely with the physical structure onto which they are installed (e.g., to save installation time and minimizing excess cabling). However, this type of configuration of the lighting arrangement further complicates the manual approach of determining the addresses of each light node and increases the likelihood of resulting in errors.